A week ago I was on a state legislative panel about the regional implications of global climate change and some climate policy folks on the panel described a range of unpleasant local effects of increasing greenhouse gases: coastal inundation from rising sea level, droughts, an increase in severe storms, serious flooding on local rivers, extreme precipitation, insect infestations killing forests, heat waves, and ocean acidification killing local shellfish, among others.

The list was biblical in length and severity. All that was missing were the frogs and boils.
And I noticed something else: the audience’s eyes glazed over as the endless list of disasters were described. And the climate policy advocates provided extraordinarily specific predictions–such as the snow pack being reduced by 35% by a certain year. Such extreme precision regarding events later in the century caused such substantial rolling of some eyeballs that I worried that some might fall out their sockets.

…

Well if biblical-style prophetic warnings are in vogue today, is there anything we can learn from the bible on their effectiveness? Let’s explore this.